Louks will focus on "BlackBerry's long-term product road map, including hardware, software, and design, as well as the company's joint development efforts," according to his direct boss John Chen, the company's interim chief executive.

Citing Louks' many hours spent with customers, carriers, and partners, Chen said: "On our path to return BlackBerry to profitability, nothing is more important than remaining deeply connected to our customers and designing and delivering secure products that exceed their expectations."

Louks previously served as the chief executive for The OpenNMS Group, an open-source network management platform company, as well as chief technology for Sony Ericsson.

BlackBerry's push back into the mobile market space includes other recent hires, notably as former SAP executive John Sims as the head of the company's Global Enterprise Services division, which remains BlackBerry's bread and butter.

Correction at 1:25 p.m. ET: Louks did not come directly from HTC. Both the story and headline have been amended.